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Published: December 4th 2015
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We filled our last 2 days in Bariloche with more....lakes and mountains! But first we popped into the town museum which has a small room of natural history exhibits (stuffed birds and animals!) and information about the region's geology/geography/flora/fauna. Here we discovered that the armadillo that we thought we saw on our first visit to the country about 10 years ago was probably a pichi rather than a large hairy armadillo. The upstairs room had a history of the inhabitants of the whole country with the various settlers, civil wars, native populations in different regions and how most of them were wiped out. This was all in Spanish so we we picked our way through some of it but you'll not be surprised to know that the railways were largely built by the Brits. However, theirs have fared even worse than ours and there's almost nothing left of them now.
H was getting twitchy looking at snow capped mountains all week so we set off in the afternoon to find some snow. The main ski resort in the area is called Catédral - about 15 miles from the main town. As with all out of season ski resorts, it looked
a bit bleak, but we took a small ancient cable car, then a very old chair lift up to the top where there was still snow and magnificent views. And finally Tronador appeared from behind the clouds to just cap the afternoon. We scrambled about on the cliffs and imagined what it would be like to ski there - not a huge area and some lifts need updating but I'm sure we'd find something to keep us entertained!
Dinner at home that night then the following day we took the bus back to Puerto Panuelo to catch the boat Victoria Modesta out to Isla Victoria, the largest island on the lake. Strangely the boat was built in Amsterdam then sailed across the Atlantic and transported by train to the Andes in the 1930s. We had about 3 hours to explore the island which was originally planted up with large numbers of non-native trees by Perito Moreno (for whom best known glacier is named and he wasvery important in exploration in the region and in defining the border between Argentina and Chile) but they are now trying to replant with native trees. The next part of the trip took us
onto the Arrayan Forest on the mainland on the other side of the lake - Arrayan trees (or large shrubs) have fantastic cinnamon coloured bark that peels a bit like eucalyptus. I have never seen them anywhere before this trip but would love to have one in my garden!
Our final night was tapas in the pub which brewed its own beer....the craft beer craze appears to have made it to Argentina which made H very happy!
Packed up the next morning for the long bus back to Puerto Montt. Long faff at the border as Chile is very strict about taking in fruit/veg/meat/seeds etc but spotted a group of green parakeets while we were waiting. And the last few miles into Puerto Montt I got my first views of Osorno and Chalbuco volcanoes (see H's previous blogs) - I hadn't even know they were there before!
Lovely to be back in the quirky Pink House. Went down to fish market to get something quick to eat and got talked into going to Restaurant Pinguino by one of the many women who hang about trying to encourage customers in. The restaurants are really just wooden shacks balanced
on top of the market. But with free seafood soup, ceviche, fresh tomato salsa, bread and pisco sours before the enormous fish we ordered with lovely views over the port and multi-coloured fishing boats - all for a song - can't really go wrong!
We had a couple of hours the following morning for a walk along the waterfront looking for dolphins (which Pablo had just told us were quite often seen) and to pop into the Juan Pablo II museum - renamed after his visit to Puerto Montt in 1984. There's a couple of rooms about his visit, some details about long extinct mammals from the region and a history of Puerto Montt. The most interesting bit was about the 1960 earthquake in Chile which had a devastating impact on Puerto Montt, the surrounding region, large areas of Chile and far beyond. It was the strongest quake in recorded history and caused a tsunami which caused deaths in Hawaii and caused damage in Los Angeles and Japan.
From there it was a taxi to the airport for our slightly madcap trip to the far north of Chile, but more of that later....
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Ross McBennett
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Snow!
Thanks for all the updates and great pics. Hope you're fully recovered now Sarah - Jane has had a similar virus throughout our trip to Norway and beyond though she managed not to let it spoil the trip (and avoided seasickness thanks to every type of medicinal and homeopathic remedy known). It was interesting to see the snow in South America as it wasn't as cold as we expected in Norway and the snow we experienced in the far north thawed and melted as we came southwards again. More evidence of climate change I suppose. Norwegian scenery utterly spectacular nonetheless.